Would you vote?

Question

Would you still vote at all (for Presidential elections at least) if you know these true facts (complete with references)?

What would you do to change the system?

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold


2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html


3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886


5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html


6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26

http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm

http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html


8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html


9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm


11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm


12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf


14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf


15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://www.bbvdocs.org/videos/baxterVPR.mov.)

http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190


17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml


18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html

http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm

http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html


20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm

http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html

http://uscountvotes.org/

Answer 1

Sure.

In my state dead people vote for Ds. It doesn't stop me from voting for Rs.

Answer 2

First, If asked to prove your accusations beyond any doubt, you couldn't. Second, we live in the greatest nation that was ever on the face of this earth. Is it perfect, hell no. It is closer than anything currently offered though.Third, there are watch dog organizations out that would jump all over a conspiracy like this. They are not government related at all, private and non profit. Fourth, you know if there were a grain of truth to this the Democrats would be having a field day, They may be wrong a lot but they are not stupid no matter what the Republicans say. And don't forget references can and are created daily to prove an individuals point, but whan asked to actually prove the information given it is sometimes very, very hard to do. Facts can be altered and twisted to prove most any idea or stance. Always in this day and age assume any polical party or policitian is only telling a partial truth when making a claim or dissing their apponent. Just enough truth that they can semi gracefully back out if cought. If you have the time, like a week at the library and take a political speech. break it down, sometimes to the word. You wil be absolutly amaized at the almost bald faced lies that are told on both sides of the fence. Then keep that speech. If there were promices made, see how many are actually implemented as promised. Not partially but as promised. I makes you not want to vote, what ever you do allways vote. Allways try to pick the person that best fits your beliefs, yes you will always have to compomise, but always vote. If you don't our country is lost. our freedoms will erode away and this will no longer be the greatest nation that ever was. Could it be better, damn staight. Thats up to you, the younger generation. Please for GODs sake, don't let the men and women who sacrificed their lives to make and keep us to have died in vain. Tough job. You betchya, are you up to it? We were.

Answer 3

Yes, I do vote. # 15 on your list is a lie. I work at the polls in Ohio. We had two observers in the precint were I work in '04. The only one that tried to get rid of them was a Democrat voter. He changed his mind when he realized the observer was not trying to stop someone from voting. Most of the others are meaningless if true. I didn't check. # 1 is also false. The voting machines may be supplied by two companies, but they are run by county election boards. Neither Dibold or ES&S ever sees the votes. The federal government does not have oversight because the constitution puts each state in charge of its own elections. Every state does regulate and oversee the industry at many levels.

Answer 4

In a nutshell, you're saying the election process in this country has some problems.

True. But recommending that we all just stop voting because of it will hardly get those problems resolved.

The elections procedures are changing because the associated technologies are changing. Because of those changes, new problems are arising, and old problems are coming to light. Intense scrutiny is being focussed on this issue. Overall, that is a very good thing.

There are unscrupulous folk who will try to steal elections anyway they can. The attention the elections process is getting will make it harder and harder for them to do so. The last thing anyone should do is become complacent about the way elections are conducted, ever. It will probably always be a battle to ensure elections are conducted fairly. But no one should stop voting because of that.

Changes I would make--well, if not tossing the electoral college in its entirety in presidential elections, I would make it impossible for an elector to vote contrary to the popular vote in their district.

I'd require all elections to uniformly conducted. That is, same process, same method of voting, same method of counting, everywhere.

Probably a 3 tiered vote confirmation, as well. Everyone has to send a ballot by mail, signed. Then everyone has to confirm their vote either online or in person at a polling place. Then they must be prepared to confirm again if they are contacted because of any question of validity.

Seems like too much hassle for a lot of people, I know. But I'd be willing, if it prevented fraud.

Answer 5

How about this: One hour before the polls closed in Florida. Dan Rather of CBS said that the polls were closed in Florida and that Florida had gone to Gore. All the other major news networks soon reported the same thing. The problem was that several predominately Republican counties still had an hour to vote, but many people saw the news reports and stayed home as opposed to wasting their time. It is estimated that Bush could have lost thousands of votes. The networks called several other states early for Gore, but held off on calling states for Bush until later.

Answer 6

Yeah, I still go ahead and vote. Mainly because the Secretary of State of each state is in charge of voting in each state (somewhat evenly split between dems and rep) and each county has evenly split (amongst the two major parties) overseers of elections. I cannot imagine having a federal system in charge of our elections!!! Anything they get involved in gets totally screwed up. I have read all the stuff about how the elections were messed up to favor Bush and I have read all the websites about the crooked things that went on to favor Kerry at the polls. There are all sorts of facts and statistics out there that completely refute eachother. Being a mathematician myself I understand how these statistics are manipulated to say whatever you want. Do I trust the system completely? No. Do I think things are occasionally messed up? Yes. Do I think there is corruption in government? yes. But I do feel that it is balanced between both parties and that as Americans we just gotta keep voting and speaking our minds to politicians. I learned in school to study both sides of an issue before I made up my mind (classic strategy for debate) and this is why I feel this way. When studying the issue you also have to consider your source. I tend to take a democrat that says the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 was crap more seriously than George Soros. I also take it seriously when Chuck Hagel and John McCain say that a policy of Bush's is crap.

Answer 7

Yes, I vote, but I'm not at all sure why I still bother.

I'm with you, Kaiser W., brother, but it's a lot simpler than all that. Not that those aren't some really great links, all of which I will check out before the night is through. And I really appreciate all the effort, which will not be wasted on me. I research, too, and not like Rush Limbaugh. The real deal, down and dirty in the trenches, in real libraries, in all the google-boxes, and with real people, and right at the source.

But it all comes down to a very simple and quick mathematical equation.

Fifty million republican votes plus Diebold is always going to be a greater quantity than two hundred million non-republican votes plus no checks and balances.

Free election is the only thing that keeps a free country free. When you no longer have that, you might as well just pull your pants down and bend over in front of the fattest Swine you see, because he owns you lock, stock, and barrel.

And thanks to King George, he owns all of your kids and grandkids and their grandkids, too, and we all know it.

Answer 8

Yes. I always vote when given the opportunity. Until such time as it is proven to be completely fraudulent, I will continue to trust in this form of government. In addition, mere distrust does not excuse one from their own actions.

If there was proof that these methods were corrupt and had been responsible for bogus election results, I would protet them but I am not sure what else I could do beyond that. I do not have the fiscal wherewithal to move from the nation, nor do I have the militant training to rise up in rebellion. I have my voice and I use it any way I can. Currently, that includes voting.

Answer 9

Yes you still have to vote. If you don't vote then its a vote they didn't have to count. You did touch on some interesting points but it wouldn't be a good idea not to vote because you think the system is fixed.

Answer 10

Pass the Kool Aid!